


violets are blue

by Waywarder



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Corsetry, Crowley's Love Language is Flowers, F/F, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: 1951. Ten years to the day:“That was very kind of you.”“Shut up.”It’s not a perfect plan, Crowley knows.But she has to try something. The war has been over for nearly six years and Crowley has been in love for far longer than that.Her long fingers are careful and precious with each and every stem and petal before her. This is how she would touch Aziraphale, she dares to think, color erupting over her face. She arranges the bouquet over and over again, determined to get it right. To get it perfect.For the Ineffable Wives Gift Exchange! Thank you to EveningStarcatcher for beta-ing!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50
Collections: Ineffable Wives Exchange 2020





	violets are blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wasleichtes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasleichtes/gifts).



_1951\. Ten years to the very day:_

Crowley can still smell the smoke and the decay. Can hear the whistle of the bombs, can see the dust illuminated by the flames. Can still feel the slightest brush of Aziraphale’s fingertips as the bag of books passed between them. 

_“That was very kind of you.”_

_“Shut up.”_

(It’s not a perfect plan, Crowley knows that.)

But she has to try something. The war has been over for nearly six years and Crowley has been in love for far longer than that. And tonight she wants to try. 

Crowley can still smell the smoke and the decay, and so maybe Aziraphale can smell it too. Crowley wants to take that away from her. To give her something beautiful to inhale of instead. 

Crowley’s long fingers are careful and precious with each and every stem and petal before her. This is how she would touch Aziraphale, she dares to think, color erupting over her face. Gentle but certain. Crowley arranges the bouquet over and over again, determined to get it right. To get it perfect.

She isn’t like Aziraphale. She isn’t good with words. They stick in her throat. The things she would say to Aziraphale feel too big for her mouth. So, she’ll tell her story in her own way. She’ll write the book of her love for Aziraphale with a language she understands. 

Violets for faithfulness, pink tulips for friendship, gardenias for hope, orchids for beauty, red roses for true love, pear blossoms for…

Well, for Aziraphale. Aziraphale likes pears.

The little speech of devotion Crowley knows she can never deliver:

_Aziraphale, angel. I am completely in love with you. I would say “hopelessly” so, but that’s wrong. Loving you is the greatest hope in all the world. If you loved me back, I would never dare to hope for anything else another day in my eternity._

She smacks her Hell-lips, imagines sweeping Aziraphale off her feet with words, with poetry, with everything Aziraphale likes best. In a perfect world, maybe she could combine everything: her flowers, Aziraphale’s poetry, throw in some nice chocolates for good measure, maybe an entire cake…

_Aziraphale, angel. You’re more beautiful than any flower. Your face in the sunshine would undo the loveliness of any bloom in any garden in any-_

Heat creeps up the back of her neck. She can’t. Crowley’s voice is for drawling, for barking, for taunting, for questioning… She would just fuck it all up with words.

_“That was very kind of you.”_

_“Shut up.”_

Crowley replays the moment in her mind every day, irate at herself for not having something better to say. “Shut up.” To the love of her fucking life. 

Crowley has poured every last ounce of her fury and ferocity at herself into the blooms before her. They are appropriately terrified. They wouldn’t dare be anything less than the most beautiful collection of flowers Aziraphale has ever seen. 

_Don’t make me say it out loud, angel. Just look at the pretty flowers, okay, my heart? I don’t need you to say it back. I just wanted you to know._

Crowley imagines walking into the shop with the flowers and seeing the glorious light of dawning comprehension in Aziraphale’s worry-blue eyes. Imagines the angel dropping her tea cup on the bookshop floor, porcelain smashing and sliding everywhere, and crossing the room to take Crowley’s face between her exquisite hands. Crowley imagines being kissed ever-so-sweetly as the perfume of the flowers and the spilled Earl Grey fills the air around them. 

Crowley shakes her head fiercely, determined not to be too lost in her reverie. The flowers are a gift. Good gifts don’t come with expectations attached.

Still…

Gardenias for hope.

Finally close to satisfied, Crowley makes her way to the bookshop. She walks this time, not trusting even the Bentley to deliver these flowers in the precise condition Crowley wants them for Aziraphale.

Crowley wonders if Aziraphale recalls the occasion herself. _Yes, hello, it’s been ten years exactly since I kept you from inconvenient discorporation at the hands of stinking Nazis and I’ve been kicking my stupid self for not kissing you then ever since. I brought you some flowers, because I’m in love with you._

Crowley groans, removes one hand from the bouquet to sweep her skinny fingers nervously through her hair. This is stupid. Worrying about this is stupid. Aziraphale won’t remember and that’s fine. This is one day of a drop in the ocean of millions. This is just any other night spent in one another’s company, drinking and laughing long after the rest of the world has gone to bed. And it’s good. It’s marvelous, actually.

Pink tulips for friendship. 

When Crowley finally arrives at the bookshop, she nudges the door open with her shoulder, careful with the bouquet. She can’t have a single petal out of place.

“Angel?” Crowley calls out, hating herself for what only she perceives as the hitch in her voice. _Get it the fuck together, demon._

Aziraphale is nowhere to be found. Crowley frowns as she looks around the shop. Where the Heaven is she?

“Angel?” Crowley calls again louder this time. Her palms sweat against the fabric of the delicate ribbon holding the flowers together.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s voice, from somewhere above, sounds relieved. “Up here, my dear!”

Crowley ascends the narrow staircase and makes her way to a room she has only seen in her dreams. When she opens the door to Aziraphale’s bedroom and takes in the sight of it for the first time, she finds that most of it is exactly as she expected: Piles and piles of books, a neat, soft floral bedspread, a cup of miraculously hot tea on the little bedside table.

What Crowley doesn’t expect is the angel sitting at her vanity, back to Crowley, and as nearly naked as Crowley has seen her since Rome.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says again in that honey-warm tone that makes Crowley weak in the knees. They lock eyes through the vanity mirror and Crowley does her best not to burst into flames on the spot. 

Because there Aziraphale sits, clad in nothing but knee-high stockings, a silky little slip, and a corset. 

Naturally, Aziraphale’s fine, shiny white corset is several decades behind the times and Crowley can’t recall a time in her life when she’s ever been quite so uninterested in trendiness. The corset is laced tightly down Aziraphale’s back, cinching her waist to within an inch of its life. Her fair shoulders are completely bare, her star-blonde hair pinned up on top of her head. 

Orchids for beauty. Fuck.

“My dear,” Aziraphale says, softly, her eyes sparkling at Crowley from the mirror. “I don’t mean to impose, but I do so wish to… oh, what’s the saying? ‘Slip into something more comfortable.” for our evening together. But these laces are such a bother. Could you help me?”

Crowley’s mouth is bone dry. _Look,_ she wants to say, dumbly. _I brought you flowers._

“Please, Crowley?”

And Crowley will never have it in her heart to deny Aziraphale. She will save her from Nazis and she will save her from uncomfortable undergarments. She crosses the room silently, her fingers a vice grip now on the bouquet. As Crowley makes her way within arm’s length, Aziraphale finally turns in her little seat and regards the flowers.

“Oh, Crowley,” she breathes, eyes fluttering closed with pleasure as she does so. “Those smell absolutely magnificent.”

“Ngk,” Crowley agrees. 

The air shifts with a slight miracle and a simple, tasteful vase appears on the vanity. Aziraphale takes the bouquet from Crowley and Crowley tries not to explode when their fingers brush against each other. Aziraphale places the flowers carefully in the vase and then buries her face in the blooms, breathing more deeply of their fragrance. When Aziraphale pulls away, she lifts a finger to the petals of a tulip and strokes it softly. 

“For you,” Crowley manages and, honestly, it sounds as stupid out loud as it does in her head. But Aziraphale just smiles up at her fondly.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale says and fuck, it’s too sincere. It cuts through Crowley’s guts like a blade. She wonders suddenly if Aziraphale knows. If she remembers. If this day means something to her like it does to Crowley.

_Please,_ Crowley wants to beg. _Please, angel._

_“Rosemary for remembrance.”_ Crowley wants to groan at the thought. Fucking Shakespeare. (This is why Crowley prefers the funny ones.)

WIthout another word, Aziraphale twists back in her seat, facing the vanity mirror, and Crowley remembers the impossible task ahead of her. Crowley can’t reach the bottommost laces, standing tall and awkwardly as she is, so she goes to her knees behind Aziraphale. Perfect. She can’t see her own stupid face in the mirror from her spot on the floor. 

Aziraphale’s back is magnificent from down here. Her back and her shoulders spill out just so over the top of the corset and Crowley can make out the pattern of faint freckles across the angel’s skin. _More beautiful than any constellation,_ Crowley thinks and wants to punch herself in the throat. 

Crowley’s fingers reach out for the laces. For all her nerves, her fingers are remarkably steady, just as they were with the flowers. She might be a wreck, sure, but this is Aziraphale’s comfort at stake. Crowley cannot imagine handling anything more precious. Her long fingers work the first knot free and the corset immediately loosens at that tightest point. Aziraphale sighs above her.

“Oh, that feels wonderful, dear. Thank you.”

_Thank you thank you thank you._ Crowley can’t believe she’s the one being thanked when she has been presented with such an immense gift. She tugs the laces free of those first eyelets and Aziraphale sighs again, relief laced with something else that Crowley dares not attempt to place. Because Aziraphale could have done this with herself. It’s not hard, even without the use of miracles. But she trusts Crowley to do it. She trusts Crowley to take care of her. She trusts the literal demon at her back. 

Violets for faithfulness.

Crowley works her way up the corset, sliding and pulling and undoing. Aziraphale makes little sighs and gasps of pleasure as Crowley works. If Crowley had concocted this in a dream, she might have found it unbearable. As it is, though, it’s something wonderful. This is where Crowley’s hands belong, after all, bringing comfort to her angel.

Crowley stands as she reaches the top of the corset. She pulls the laces free from their final eyelets. Aziraphale’s hands clasp the front of the corset, so nothing slips away. Without giving herself the time to overthink it, Crowley leans down and places a soft kiss upon the skin she has just freed. She barely grazes her fingertips over the soft flesh, not to push, not to press, not to ask for more. When Crowley touches Aziraphale, it’s always this: to make certain she’s really there. When Crowley looks back up and into the mirror, Aziraphale is gazing back at her, pink lips slightly parted, blue eyes shimmering.

_Some day,_ Crowley imagines Aziraphale whispering to her, voice gentle but certain. _Some day, my darling. We can have more than even this._

There are none in this particular bouquet, but protea for courage. 

“Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphale says again. For a moment, Crowley thinks the angel is about to say something else, but instead there is just a flicker of melancholy in those lake-blue eyes and nothing more.

“I’ll let you get decent, then, shall I?” Crowley doesn’t recognize the sound of her own voice.

“I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” Aziraphale confirms, her curls bouncing magnificently as she nods her head.

As Crowley turns to leave the room, she breathes in deeply once more of the smell of the flowers and of the inherent sweetness of Aziraphale herself. Crowley walks out of the room with a smile on her face. 

Red roses for true love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
